


chocolate unburnt

by Experi



Category: Fate/Grand Order
Genre: M/M, Valentines, im back on my bullshit!!, shoves valentines candy in sals mouth PARTICIPATE IN THE FESTIVITIES
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-17 17:53:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29354502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Experi/pseuds/Experi
Summary: It's unfortunate if Salieri doesn't get to eat Valentine's chocolate like everyone else does, simply because he wraps himself in a nonsense system of rules. At least there's loopholes to exploit, if one's inclined to bother with that sort of thing.
Relationships: Hessian Lobo | Avenger/Antonio Salieri | Avenger
Comments: 1
Kudos: 7





	chocolate unburnt

**Author's Note:**

> hessian lobo’s valentine scene makes me mad because it doesnt let ritsuka offer hesse anything, but i sincerely love the part where hessian just watches lobo yeet u onto his back and sprint off and hessians just waving as if this is a “bye on ur first day of school son :)” situation
> 
> also i know its not necessarily canon but there’s an illustration in chalace that shows hessian eating rice and i am not exaggerating when i say it haunts me constantly. you telling me this man can eat? he can eat? how. whats he do. tell me. artist? idk what artist it was but i need them to explain their motives to me. he eats? he eats…..
> 
> if he eats then why cant ritsuka give him chocolate too!!! huffs.

Salieri’s room is discomforting in a way unique to the musician, the lingering smell of wildfire around the door shut tight. The scorch marks extend a little bit past the threshold this time, and the air still wavers with a faint noise like the very last vibrations of a plucked string. 

Salieri’s visitor regards this as oddly impressive. Fujimaru sure did a good job accidentally setting him off. Marie wasn’t kidding when she said this one was bad. At least she’s the most reliable person when it comes to stabilizing Salieri with only her appearance, and whatever it was that she was vaguely explaining was presumably accomplished.

Inside is Salieri, sitting on his bed, almost doubled over with his head in his hands. His form has stabilized, almost, as wings hover around him in half-material state, flickers of pink and red wildfire and battle garb flashing over both Salieri’s body and where the Grey Man, the lamenting exterior, would be were it manifested.

The chocolate Master gave him sits in its neat little red box an arm’s length away from him as the only thing in the room that has not been even slightly marked by Salieri’s upset. As much as this object  _ shouldn’t _ be his, until he figures out what to do with it, he can’t bear to ruin it. He shouldn’t be given chocolate from a human (a human his presence will certainly harm) as if  _ he _ is a human, as if  _ he _ is Salieri. Salieri likes sweets, ‘Salieri’ likes sweets (and is this where he should say ‘as well’ or ‘of course’?), though this trait feels wrong here-- as if his state as mocking doppelgänger wasn’t already impermissible.

He’s been trying to figure out what he’s going to do for a while, ever since Marie came and he pressed a baton into her hands and demanded his name stay away from Master as if secrecy were either possible or helpful. (He can pretend.) He wants to eat it as well as wishing he  _ didn’t _ want to eat it. ‘He’, the thing that is not Salieri, should not be given things as if he is equal to a person, and he should not partake in these things.

Salieri makes an indistinct muttering noise and curls further into himself. The flames flicker a little brighter, inching a little more into reality.

A sudden noise prevents him from sinking back into the circular thinking of debating who he is with ‘himself’. There’s a knock that comes in a sharp two-rap pattern, quick, followed by the sound of the door accepting a keycode and sliding open. Salieri doesn’t need to look up to know who entered, there’s only four people who know the lock on his quarters and the knock pattern is specific to one of those.

He  _ does _ look up, though, because it’s impolite and makes communication useless if he doesn’t. Hessian waves at him. The disparity is immediate and almost comical; Salieri’s exhausted and troubled stare against Hessian’s casual attitude that would be ridiculously unnerving were he with anyone else. Salieri pulls himself a little further back into his own body, own awareness. “Hello,” he says.

Hessian’s frustrating sometimes, because Salieri needs to pay attention in order to understand him. With sign language, or notes, or even tracing words or symbols with fingertip, Salieri needs to pay attention and not simply allow the sounds of speech to wash over him without processing a word. Technically, this is mindfulness and therefore a good thing. It doesn’t mean Salieri enjoys it at the moment, when it’s much easier to sit in a heap and mumble to himself about being nothing like a person.

Hessian sits next to him anyways. There’s a box in Hessian’s hand that he places on his leg, one identical to the box Salieri’s been meticulously refusing to touch. Hessian’s, however, is a little more slipshod and shows clear indication that it’s been manhandled. 

Salieri looks at it blankly for a second before flicking his gaze back to Hessian. “Master visited you, too?”

Hessian gives a gesture of affirmation. Salieri mutters something -- Fujimaru’s a fool, huh, gifting things to anyone they come across in the hall. Well, no, that’s not quite right: Lobo isn’t impossible to communicate with, and Hessian is utterly harmless to anyone he doesn’t benefit from killing. It’s fine to gift them things, as there is no possibility of confusing them for human and there’s no harm to come for it. 

It’s just him, then, who-- Salieri’s distracted by a sharp bop to the top of his head. His wandering attention returns to Hessian, who’s holding up the box of Fujimaru’s chocolate in warning. He’ll bonk Salieri with it again if he needs to. (The flickering of his ascension form and the hints of fire around him have largely disappeared as well, though it’s only Hessian who notices this. Good.) Salieri exhales, measured.

Hessian watches him for a beat before deciding that he’s passed inspection and settles instead for opening the chocolate. Salieri watches. There’s a chunk missing, part that Hessian left behind for Lobo. Not for eating, though a chunk of chocolate for that large a dog wouldn’t exactly be a problem (much less for a Servant dog), but because Lobo likes the smell of it. Hessian was slightly let down that Ritsuka didn’t bring him any, though he supposes he doesn’t exactly look like he can make use of it.

Fair assessment, but not entirely an accurate one. Hessian breaks a piece of chocolate off and offers it to Salieri. Salieri looks blankly at it. “That’s yours,” Salieri says in lieu of refusal. Fine, fine. The movements Hessian makes are similar to how people with heads would eat things, though instead of being bitten the chocolate is surrounded by a trail of the smoke that perpetually hovers around Hessian’s neck and a thin wisp of blue flame, and then it’s simply not there any more.

It is, in fact, good chocolate. And, knowing Salieri, if he refused it there’s a reason. “Did you try it?” Hessian signs.

Salieri glances away, briefly and tellingly, to the untouched matching box on his other side. “I can’t.”

No response, which is about the same as a “ _ go on, then _ ” in this case. Salieri grumbles. “It’s… from Master, so I can’t let them get accustomed to standing near Death. This should be refused, yet doing so would be rude as well when it’s already in my hands. I can’t tell if wanting it is because I’m ‘me’ or…” A flash of pink barely-real flame over him before Hessian waves him to stop talking. It’s either that or he’ll (once again) end up narrating a circular panic attack for half an hour.

The situation is simple enough to grasp, anyways. “Share mine,” Hessian signs. Salieri frowns skeptically at him. “What? You can’t deal with chocolate Master gave you. Deal with some that Master gave the wolf. I’ll take the one you can’t eat if you want a trade.” If the chocolate wasn’t given to ‘Salieri as a human’, then it should be fine. It’s just something shared with Hessian, which Hessian already knows through experience is allowed.

Salieri’s rules for what is acceptable are convoluted and utterly arcane, but Hessian does at least know there’s loopholes.

“Your logic is terrible,” Salieri grumbles, but after a significant pause to argue silently with himself, he reaches over and breaks off a piece of the chocolate in Hessian’s box nevertheless. The desire to eat something sweet wins out, as Hessian was confident it would. Salieri eats it daintily, mindful not to touch it for too long lest the wildfire heat from his hands melt the chocolate into his gloves.

It’s sweet, but not terribly so, on the darker end of milk chocolate. Without the burden inherent of it being a gift presented from a human to Salieri as if he’s a fellow person, he’s able to think that he is allowed to like it, as a facsimile of Salieri or as ‘himself’. Or maybe, it’s difficult to be in too distressed a mood when there’s sweets and no obligation.

Salieri takes another piece, then lets himself lean against Hessian, head tilted back. After a pause: “Master’s pretty good at making candy.”

A nod that’s felt in a shift of shoulder. They are. Even Lobo liked the smell of it, so… it would be a shame if Salieri left himself out of everyone’s party, is all.

**Author's Note:**

> "experi are u just living vicariously thru hessian to ensure salieri is spoiled" yeah, what about it????you gonna stop me?????you can't.


End file.
